A Survey of HTs and HTLs Concerning the Newly Established HTL Registry Status

Abstract

Students and faculty affiliated with the Program in Histotechnology at the University of Texas School of Allied Health Sciences felt the need for an assessment of the attitudes of histologic technologists-technicians toward the newly established HTL registry. It was determined that a nationwide survey of Schools of Histotechnology could be used to accomplish this objective.

The results of our survey showed that a majority of the respondents have yet to appreciate-the value of education in histotechnology. We submit that advancement in the field of histotechnology is intimately associated with advancements in histotechnology education and research. We concluded that on the basis of our survey, further research could be done in this area to identify and stimulate those ideas which would best benefit the profession of histotechnology.     

Development, Dissemination, and Implementation of Evidence-Based Treatments: Commentary

Clinical psychology's success at developing, disseminating, and implementing evidence-based treatments (EBTs) will determine our profession's ability to remain a highly regarded helping profession. Even though we have treatments demonstrated to work, currently most specific therapies used in applied settings have not been scientifically established. The gap between the science and the practice of clinical psychology is a significant problem. Arguments for and resistance to using EBTs are presented in detail. Changes in our field are needed. Researchers need to conduct effectiveness research and form partnerships with practitioners. Practitioners need to stay connected with clinical psychology's scientific roots and collaborate with researchers. Most importantly, American Psychological Association (APA) leadership needs to promote the dissemination and implementation of EBTs. Specific ideas about how to accomplish this are offered.     

Interactivity and continuity in normal and aphasic language production

Current research in cognitive modelling has assumed that the interactive nature of processing during language production has been supported by fits to the behaviour of brain-damaged patients. In this paper, several previously proposed theories of word production, all based on the interactive spreading-activation theory of Dell (1986), are evaluated in the context of picture naming. Using a new corpus of data from 50 Italian aphasic patients, we find that patient patterns do not seem to demand an interactive theory. We also explore the corollary ideas of continuity between normal and random performance, and global damage in aphasia, and we find that they are incompatible with our data. We argue that it is very difficult for a modelling study to yield strong constraints on cognitive theory. Although valuable, such efforts currently do not contribute evidence for interactive processing in language production.     

Is Lyme disease always poly microbial? – The jigsaw hypothesis

Lyme disease is considered to be caused by Borrelia species of bacteria but slowly evidence is accumulating which suggests that Lyme disease is a far more complex condition than Borreliosis alone. This hypothesis suggests that it may be more appropriate to regard Lyme disease as a tick borne disease complex. Over recent years numerous different microbes have been found in ticks which are known to be zoonotic and can coinfect the human host. The hypothesis suggests that multiple coinfections are invariably present in the clinical syndromes associated with Lyme disease and it is suggested that these act synergistically in complex ways. It may be that patterns of coinfection and host factors are the main determinants of the variable clinical features of Lyme disease rather than Borrelia types. An analogy with a jigsaw puzzle is presented with pieces representing Borreliae, coinfections and host factors. It is suggested that many pieces of the puzzle are missing and our knowledge of how the pieces fit together is rudimentary. It is hoped that the hypothesis will help our understanding of this complex, enigmatic condition.     

Experience of body/self as the primary ground of life/art creation: A phenomenological case study of Rolfing1

In this paper, it is proposed that some variations in generally fixed muscle tonus found in people are linked to postural patterns and personality. It is suggested that the pattern originates from, or at least matches, dorsal-ventral undulation, an evolutionarily early form of locomotion. Drawings demonstrate, with simple line, how muscle tonus patterns define whole bodies and individuals, much in the same way that cartooning does. In addition, whole-body mental imagery provides a kinesthetic experience of the concepts and types. New tools for dance movement therapy, body psychotherapy, and kinesthetically based postural reeducation could arise from the concepts. This variety of physical typology has not been previously proposed, though we notice the types in everyday life and in cartooning.     

A new framework of image reconstruction from fan beam projections

In this paper, we present a unified framework to reconstruct images for both fan beam and cone beam projections. The important feature of our theoretical framework is that it does not depend on the classical concept of the Radon transform at all. This property allows us to directly generalize the ideas and techniques developed in this paper to the cone beam reconstruction problem. In this paper, we extract such a framework from developing a new image reconstruction scheme from fan beam projections. Our new scheme also provides us new understanding of fan beam reconstruction problem. Our main results for the fan beam reconstruction are the following: First, we derive a general reconstruction scheme, in which the data sufficiency condition is transparently revealed by the reconstruction formula. Specifically, the data sufficiency condition for an accurate reconstruction of a region of interest (ROI) is that all the lines passing through the ROI must intersect the source trajectory at least once. Second, we further simplify the general reconstruction scheme by following three major steps of our new framework: (i) using symmetries of intermediate function; (ii) handling the data redundancy; (iii) changing discrete summation over the possible focal points into an integral along the source trajectory. After these steps, we obtain a new filtered backprojection algorithm. The key characteristic of this new algorithm is to take derivative of measured data with respect to the trajectory parameter. In practice, we can trade this derivative to some other continuous functions. In the configuration of a circular source trajectory with a third generation arc/collinear detector, we demonstrate how to remove the undesirable derivative of measured projection data. It results in a new algorithm for the sequential reconstruction of a ROI with a general normalized weighting function.     

Serological studies of monoclonal RH1(D) antibodies with RH1(D) variants

In this paper we chose to emphasize three aspects of our work. First we underlined that “low grade and high grade” D weak red blood cells studied at the DNA level could, when monoclonal antibodies were used, give patterns of positive and negative reactions like partial RH1(D) cells. Secondly, we showed the importance of the technical conditions of the study which are essential for establishing a pattern of reactivity defining an epitope. It appears that the use of papain treated cells at room temperature can be misleading for the definition of epitope especially with IgM antibodies. Lastly we pointed out the interest of Rh variant cells, defined at the gene level, to study the expression of RH1(D) epitopes on the external part of the membrane.     

A statistical analysis of board certification in clinical neuropsychology.

In this paper, we use tools from decision theory to evaluate the effectiveness of the current psychology board certification process used by the American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology (ABCN). These analyses indicate that ABCN's current process is likely to be failing to certify too many competently trained candidates, and identifying relatively few truly competent neuropsychologists. In fact, we estimate that ABCN is only certifying between 16 and 52% of competent clinical neuropsychologists. This is in contrast to the processes of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), after which ABCN has indicated that it models its examination. ABMS estimates that 89% of all practicing physicians are board-certified by one of their member boards. Based on our analyses, specific recommendations for change are offered for credentialing the profession of neuropsychology.     

Empirically Supported Treatments for Children and Adolescents: Where to From Here?

In this commentary, we provide additional detail about the movement to identify, evaluate, and disseminate empirically supported treatments (ESTs), suggest a Web-based strategy that might prove useful in disseminating ESTs, and comment on professional and ethical issues associated with the use and failure to use ESTs. We provide a series of Web-based recommendations and then assert that the ongoing practice of invalidated treatments not only is bad practice, but also may be unethical. The children, adolescents, and families the profession serves deserve the very best it has to offer them. It is our responsibility as practicing professionals to keep abreast of developments about which treatments work and which ones do not. Further, if we are not proficient in those strategies that do work, then we need to refer children with these problems to professionals who are. We recognize the boldness of our assertion but suggest that if we stay the course and are successful in disseminating these interventions, they will become "treatment as usual" over time.     

Bringing Up the Bodies: Psyche–Soma,Body Awareness and Feeling At Ease

This paper looks at how difficult early experiences can give rise to defences in which patients rely excessively on their minds, or on bodily activity, having little faith in good reliable objects, internal or external, and little capacity for relaxation and just being. Links are made between Winnicott's theories about mind and psyche–soma and Porges' more recent ideas about vagal tone and the parasympathetic nervous system. These ideas are illustrated with a number of clinical examples of patients who were distrustful of others and who were out of touch with their bodily states. Attention is paid to the need to become more ‘body aware’ in our clinical technique, and questions are asked as to how we might manage this.     

Nursing constraint models for electronic health records: a vision for domain knowledge governance

Various forms of electronic health records (EHRs) are currently being introduced in several countries. Nurses are primary stakeholders and need to ensure that their information and knowledge needs are being met by such systems information sharing between health care providers to enable them to improve the quality and efficiency of health care service delivery for all subjects of care. The latest international EHR standards have adopted the openEHR approach of two-level modelling. The first level is a stable information model determining structure, while the second level consists of constraint models or 'archetypes' that reflect the specifications or clinician rules for how clinical information needs to be represented to enable unambiguous data sharing. The current state of play in terms of international health informatics standards development activities is providing the nursing profession with a unique opportunity and challenge. Much work has been undertaken internationally in the area of nursing terminologies and evidence-based practice. This paper argues that to make the most of these emerging technologies and EHRs we must now concentrate on developing a process to identify, document, implement, manage and govern our nursing domain knowledge as well as contribute to the development of relevant international standards. It is argued that one comprehensive nursing terminology, such as the ICNP or SNOMED CT is simply too complex and too difficult to maintain. As the openEHR archetype approach does not rely heavily on big standardised terminologies, it offers more flexibility during standardisation of clinical concepts and it ensures open, future-proof electronic health records. We conclude that it is highly desirable for the nursing profession to adopt this openEHR approach as a means of documenting and governing the nursing profession's domain knowledge. It is essential for the nursing profession to develop its domain knowledge constraint models (archetypes) collaboratively in an international context.     

DEFENSIVE PROCESSES AND DECEPTION: AN ANALYSIS OF THE RESPONSE OF THE INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH TO DISCLOSURES OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

Disclosures about the extent of sexual abuse within the church context and the gradual revealing of the way that the institution has responded in the past indicate underlying anxiety and associated defensive processes. It is suggested in this paper that these processes have led to secrecy and deception. Similarities between the behaviour of perpetrators and the response by the church are explored alongside current preoccupations within the church. Psychoanalytic ideas and theories of organizational dynamics are used to explore and reflect on the fantasies and explicit and implicit assumptions within the institution. It is suggested that the church has displayed institutional narcissism in its response to disclosures. Ideas are illustrated by generic situations.     

It Is Time We Stopped Colluding

I argue here that we psychotherapists in the private sector bear our own share of responsibility for the institutionalization of a two-tier system of psychological care and therapy. We are on aggregate a profession of the self-employed, focused on the self-development of the individual who can afford to pay our fees. As a profession we appear to be relatively blind to the living conditions of the less well-off citizens in our society and to the ethics of collective responsibility.     

The role of sensorimotor learning in the perception of letter-like forms: tracking the causes of neural specialization for letters

Functional specialization in the brain is considered a hallmark of efficient processing. It is therefore not surprising that there are brain areas specialized for processing letters. To better understand the causes of functional specialization for letters, we explore the emergence of this pattern of response in the ventral processing stream through a training paradigm. Previously, we hypothesized that the specialized response pattern seen during letter perception may be due in part to our experience in writing letters. The work presented here investigates whether or not this aspect of letter processing-the integration of sensorimotor systems through writing-leads to functional specialization in the visual system. To test this idea, we investigated whether or not different types of experiences with letter-like stimuli ("pseudoletters") led to functional specialization similar to that which exists for letters. Neural activation patterns were measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after three different types of training sessions. Participants were trained to recognize pseudoletters by writing, typing, or purely visual practice. Results suggested that only after writing practice did neural activation patterns to pseudoletters resemble patterns seen for letters. That is, neural activation in the left fusiform and dorsal precentral gyrus was greater when participants viewed pseudoletters than other, similar stimuli but only after writing experience. Neural activation also increased after typing practice in the right fusiform and left precentral gyrus, suggesting that in some areas, any motor experience may change visual processing. The results of this experiment suggest an intimate interaction among perceptual and motor systems during pseudoletter perception that may be extended to everyday letter perception.     

Familial recurrence of terminal transverse defects of the arm

Three families in which relatives were concordant for upper limb terminal transverse defects are described. These families and previously reported ones with similar recurrence of terminal transverse defects are reviewed and analyzed. It is suggested that, at least in part, the patterns of relatedness for these recurrences more likely are the result of a genetic contribution to the development of this birth defect, rather than such recurrences being solely due to chance.     

EXTREMISM AND ITS MILIEUX

This paper discusses how some of the ideas and approaches with which Bob Hinshelwood has been identified can be applied in examining political extremism, particularly destructive forms of fundamentalism. It considers the application at a societal level of concepts of psychosocial dynamics in therapeutic communities. Topics such as the management of ambivalence amongst community staff, the institution's primal scene, and the small group as container are shown to have parallels in the relationships between extremist groups and society. The degree of support for or tolerance of a particular form of fundamentalism in a sector of the public is often an important influence on the extent to which it may generate violent extremism. It is suggested that psychoanalytic understandings of the superego and its relationship to the current external world can throw light on the social supports for extremism.     

Cardiac Flow Analysis Applied to Phase Contrast Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Heart

Phase contrast magnetic resonance imaging is performed to produce flow fields of blood in the heart. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the state of change in swirling blood flow within cardiac chambers and to quantify it for clinical analysis. Velocity fields based on the projection of the three dimensional blood flow onto multiple planes are scanned. The flow patterns can be illustrated using streamlines and vector plots to show the blood dynamical behavior at every cardiac phase. Large-scale vortices can be observed in the heart chambers, and we have developed a technique for characterizing their locations and strength. From our results, we are able to acquire an indication of the changes in blood swirls over one cardiac cycle by using temporal vorticity fields of the cardiac flow. This can improve our understanding of blood dynamics within the heart that may have implications in blood circulation efficiency. The results presented in this paper can establish a set of reference data to compare with unusual flow patterns due to cardiac abnormalities. The calibration of other flow-imaging modalities can also be achieved using this well-established velocity-encoding standard. Medical image processing software named Medflovan, which is developed by Kelvin K. L. Wong, is used to produce the results displayed in this paper. The research-based version of this software system is utilized to provide cardiac flow visualization and analysis effectively.     

A fuzzy decision tree-based SVM classifier for assessing osteoarthritis severity using ground reaction force measurements

A novel fuzzy decision tree-based SVM (FDT-SVM) classifier is proposed in this paper, to distinguish between asymptotic (AS) and osteoarthritis (OA) knee gait patterns and to investigate OA severity using 3-D ground reaction force (GRF) measurements. FDT-SVM incorporates effective techniques for feature selection (FS) and class grouping (CG) at each non-leaf nodes of the tree structure, which reduce the overall complexity of DT building and alleviate the overfitting effect. The embedded FS and CG are based on the notion of fuzzy partition vector (FPV) that comprises the fuzzy membership degrees of every pattern in their target classes, serving as a local evaluation metric with respect to patterns. FS is driven by a fuzzy complementary criterion (FuzCoC) which assures that features are iteratively introduced, providing the maximum additional contribution in regard to the information content given by the previously selected features. A novel Wavelet Packet (WP) decomposition based on the FuzCoC principles is also introduced, to distinguish informative and complementary features from GRF data. The quality of our method is validated in terms of statistical metrics drawn by confusion matrices, such as sensitivity, specificity and total classification accuracy. In addition, we investigate the impact of each GRF component. Finally, comparative results with existing techniques are given, demonstrating the efficacy of the suggested approach.